See, back in late 2010, two of the men possessed by the surf-punk aliens, took off their masks, talked to the media and said the Aminos were done. They said the band was played out. In about a decade, the group managed to hammer their sound into our heads through about 500 shows.

So, I talked to Dave Taylor & Scott Boyink – so sexy, just like “Star Search” spokesmodels – about “the end” of the Aminos. The story worked out so well that some fellow journalists give me a few awards for it. Thanks, guys!

That final show in December 2010 at Small’s in Hamtramck was intense. Hot, crowded and loud. Over a dozen TVs were sacrificed as about as many Aminos appeared on stage. And, if you think four or five Aminos is creepy – double that creepiness by two and then put a cherry on top. That was the “farewell show” – big fun for kids of all ages!

Final Show Poster by Chris Urbanski

As proof that the “farewell show” was a destructive masterpiece, people close to the Aminos told me after that the group had knocked a rather large hole in the stage. The cost of the repairs was taken out of the band’s payment for the night by the management of Small’s.

So, maybe that’s why the Aminos are back? These aliens don’t have the money to fix their ship and get the hell out of here. This is funny because the Church of the SubGenius, which the Aminos are proud members, has often delayed its end of the world celebration – known as X-Day – because not enough cash has come in. But, it’s hard out there for a SubGenius. Most of the squares aren’t hip to slack and the mission of J.R. “Bob” Dobbs.

J.R. "Bob" Dobbs

While this Saturday’s show at Small’s will be the first Detroit area appearance of the Aminos in about 14 months, your intrepid reporter found them in Lansing last fall. They shared the stage with long time hardcore punk funny man Tesco Vee and the Meatmen.

Maybe that brief appearance in cowtown was about more than just the music? If I were a betting man I would say that the Aminos were aiming for bringing slack to Michigan’s Capitol. Maybe the Aminos were looking to have “In Bob We Trust” signs placed inside? Whatever their plans, they weren’t talking about it. In fact, they never talk.

The Amino Acids - Live in Lansing,MI: Fall 2011

But ahead of Saturday’s return of the Amino Acids, I’ve got something for you. An exclusive of something no one has heard in full. Here’s the full raw interview I conducted with Dave Taylor and Scott Boyink in the fall of 2010 about the Aminos, their part in this intergalactic sound conspiracy and why the band was calling it quits.

Listen to The Amino Acids interview:

Part 1 of The Amino Acids Interview

Part 2 of The Amino Acids Interview

Obviously, they are liars. So, don’t take what they say 100% seriously. But, it is enjoyable nonetheless.

Portrait of the author as a "jaded whore"!

As for me, if I’m not stuck under the wheels of a Mack truck, I expect to drag myself to Hamtramck – the land where the pierogi flows like water – to see the Aminos tear it up live. I know I will feel like a giddy little school girl remembering the old days. Those wonderful days of fun and frolic before I became the jaded whore you see today.

Please note, I’m not telling you what to do with your weekend. But if I was you – and Praise Bob, I’m not – I’d try to make it to this show because who knows when the Aminos will pull a Jimmy Hoffa and disappear forever.

Here’s the info:

DETROIT SUBGENIUS DEVIVAL – 2012

Small’s

10339 Conant

Hamtramck, MI

48212

DOORS AT 8PM – tickets $7

9:20 – Opening Brag, etc – main stage

9:40 – Karmic Lava – floor stage

10:00 – Boron Nuzzle – middle room

10:20 – Songs from the Moon – main stage

10:40 – Tell All Your Friends – floor stage

11:00 – Three Hives – middle room

11:20 – Coffin Feeder – main stage

11:40 – Best Idea Ever! – floor stage

12:00 – Freak Ache – middle room

12:20 – Man Inc. – main stage

12:40 – JWPP – floor stage

1:00 – The Amino Acids – main stage

This event is officially sanctioned by The SubGenius Foundation.

Official Ordainment packages will be for sale.

You have probably never heard of Anvil. But, if you take the time, the story is amazing.

See a few years ago, a former roadie of the band decided to tell the tale in a documentary, a film that is an inspiration to never give up on your dreams and to always keep your best friend nearby.

That film is “Anvil: The Story of Anvil”.

Anvil is a Toronto-based heavy metal act that goes back to the 1970s. For a time in the early 80s, Anvil was expected to be the next big thing. Their shows and records were popular with fans and even other hard rock bands such as Slayer, Guns n Roses and Metallica.

But by 2005 the band was hitting a rough patch. Gigs were hard to come by and the day jobs for the band’s two original members, Steve “Lips” Kudlow and Robb Reiner, were a serious drag on their creativity.

Then an old roadie who went on to have success as a Hollywood screenwriter decided to make a documentary about his old friends, Anvil.

“Anvil: The Story of Anvil” was released a few years ago to receive glowing reviews. With a 98% positive rating on Rotten Tomatoes review site, here’s what some of the critics have to say:

“Now THIS is Spinal Tap.” – Washington Post

“I don’t know if their music is any good. Their fans think so. The doc doesn’t show one song all the way through. But they swore a pledge when they were 14, and they’re still honoring it, and at 51, Lips knows he still has it and that Anvil will be back on the charts. Maybe there is hope for Susan Boyle.” – Roger Ebert

In September 2011, I had a chance to talk to Steve “Lips” Kudlow about the band, the film, life and previous gigs in Detroit (we haven’t been the best or biggest fans).

Listen to the Anvil interview here.

Here’s one of Anvil’s best known tracks “Metal on Metal”.

Doc Waffles and his team of "lawyers"

What is it in the water here in Detroit? For some reason we seem to create the most critically loved (Eminem) and hated (ICP) white rappers in the world.

Detroit seems to be the place where a predominately black art form can mix with the over-culture and create something completely new & innovative.

Meet Doc Waffles – a man creating new ideas and attitude out of the mix.

Over the past six months, I’ve fallen in love with the sonic stretching and innovative word play of Ben Ness AKA Doc Waffles. I saw him earlier this month at the Magic Stick in Detroit. That’s where I made this bootleg of his show.

Doc Waffles throwing down at the Old Miami (Detroit) in September 2011

Waffles is a rapper who paints in colors not often used in the hip-hop palate. He goes into areas most other rappers would rarely, if ever, venture. As a genre, hip-hop seems limited. Those limits are usually self-imposed. Countless MCs maintain the conventions of braggadocio and maintaining a hard edged, cool persona. For Ness’s alter-ego, he brings a willingness to be funny, absurd and surreal all filtered through his experience of growing up in his “hood” – the exurbs of Oakland County – one of the richest counties in America.

Doc Waffles "Seizure Suit Farms"

The former high school golf team captain, and collector of antique books, released his latest EP in the fall of 2011. “Seizure Suit Farms” is a short, solid example of Waffles’s obsessions and observations. The record features odes to the sorrow that socks are “never quite the same” once you wear & wash them, the story of Billy Joel’s attempted suicide in the early 1970s & how “We Didn’t Start the Fire” was a milestone that “re-invented rap” as well as a story of a privileged & young “princess” who is totally irresponsible, not only with love but with her cat and her life.

But for me, Ness’s filtering of the suburban experience finds its height on “Golf View Drive”. Waffles’s 2006 album shows an almost autobiographical sense of the despair many have felt growing up in the suburbs. Couple the narrator’s despair with a parent who has given up and wallows in his own self-destruction and the record takes on qualities akin to David Lynch’s “Blue Velvet” or Sam Mendes & Alan Ball’s “American Beauty”. “Golf View Drive” introduces the listener to the great and horrible things lurking in the world of big houses and manicured lawns. Doc Waffles songs feature topics that can be as soul crushing and jarring as anything coming from a rapper who has lived in the streets of urban American decay. Waffles walks listeners through a world of alcoholic fathers & the concern of growing up to be just like the old man, working to strip away the fronts we all seem to live with and even having to put your mother in a nursing home & all the emotions that go along with it. These are not the typical fields rappers till. But for Doc Waffles, it is fertile ground – sonically and lyrically speaking.

Waffles’s latest effort is a follow up to the “Seizure Suit Farms” EP called “How to Shoot Quail” and, like his last record, it is offered free of charge.

So, this Valentine’s Day down load the latest from Doc Waffles “How to Shoot Quail”, and maybe “Seizure Suit Farms”, and fall in love with the sounds this Detroiter is putting down.

My wife won’t let me have an Ouija board in the house because she’s afraid of ghosts.  But apparently it’s okay to have this frightening Poltergeist-y clown doll just lurking in a box under our stairs waiting for its chance to strike during a thunderstorm.

I’m just sayin’.

Do we really need to be subjected to Valentine’s Day commercials a month before Valentine’s Day?  Bastards.

Anyways, I will subject you to a weird little Valentine that I found pressed in a thrift store book I purchased.

• J.C.Penney 8 Transistor Superheterodyne Transceiver
• Model No. 680-8025
• Cat. No. 850-0654
• Frequency: Channel 14  27.125MHz & Channel 5  27.015MHz
• Power Source: DC 9V
• Mono audio out to earplug on back
• Production date: July 1977